Football Mania

The Egyptian national football team is playing Algeria for a chance to go to the World Cup this evening in Sudan. A good portion of Cairo was totally blocked by celebrations after the Egyptian win a few days ago and sales of flags for supporters has been brisk.

Dancing Horse

As many have enjoyed the photo of the mare and photographer, this was shot at the same exhibition. Egyptian dancing horses are usually stallions, the work taking a lot of muscle. They dance to the music of local musicians.

Photographer and His Subject

The Arabian Horse Breeders' Association held a noncompetitive show at Rabab Stud today afer four days of the Egyptian National and International competitions. Some of the horses were shown at liberty, meaning that they were simply turned loose in the paddock for people to watch and admire. After playing around in the paddock for a while, this lovely black mare came to a stop next to one of the photographers for her handler to place the halter on her so she could be led out.

Wooden Bridge

The farmers here make pretty much everything they need themselves. In this case it was a bridge to get to the other side of the canal. Sometimes they are made from palm logs, sometimes concrete, sometimes from random scraps of wood.

The Saddlemaker's Workshop

Probably most of you have never seen the inside of a saddle. Most of us hadn't either until Zsuzsu Illes came to visit for a couple of weeks to do clinics on riding and saddle fit. One of our local saddlemakers has been trying to learn to do a better job so he was invited to a saddle fitting session where I translated for him and then he invited the group to his workshop so that Zsuzsu could give him ideas and suggestions for his work. These are some trees for saddles that haven't been built yet. They are not something that I'd put on any of my horses but they will likely end up on horses at the pyramids stables. Unfortunately, most of our good saddles have to be imported at considerable cost and without being able to be sure that they will actually fit our horses. For people who can't afford this, a local saddle is the only solution but it isn't good for the horse. We are working on getting some saddlemakers to come and work with the locals to improve the quality.

The Cleanup Crew

The stalks are those of last summer's okra crop. They are allowed to get quite tall and woody and cut down after the harvest of the last pods which will supply next summer's seed. The sheep will trim off all the leftover leaves and twigs after which they will be left to dry to be used for firewood for the farmers to boil their tea water over while working in the fields.

Housewives' Helper

The women living in the villages don't usually have cars or access to supermarkets so enterprising young (and old) men drive carts around with the more commonly used cleaning supplies, such as simple soaps, detergents and the old fashioned rusts-away-in-your-hands steel wool to clean the enormous aluminum cooking pots they favour. These things and a bit of elbow grease leave the pots glistening in the sun.

Tea Break at Dahshur

Some of the tourist police and their camels take a break in the afternoon in the shadow of the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur. This pyramid is interesting for its sort of squashed shape (the builders used too steep an angle initially and then had to lower it) and for the fact that it is one of the only pyramids that still has its facing stones.

Coffee Break

Many years ago before Cairenes went totally overboard over lattes, there was a nice family owned Italian style coffee shop on Road 9 in Maadi. Cafe Greco was an instant success among the expats and soon was filled with both local and foreign residents. For my money, it's still the best coffee in Cairo, despite Starbucks, Cilantro, Beano's and any number of other competitors.

Intersection Market

They are everywhere, I know, not just in Egypt, those guys selling kleenex and and steering wheel covers and pop-out sun shades to put in your car window. This guy caught my eye with the wonderful colours of his dusters.